苦味受体基因家族功能和演化研究的最新进展

苦味的识别作为一种防御机制, 能帮助动物避免摄入有毒物质, 它在动物的长期进化过程中起着至关重要的作用. 由于不同动物具有不同的生存环境和取食偏好, 使苦味识别能力在动物的长期进化中产生了分化. 苦味的识别源于苦味物质和苦味受体的结合, 所以对编码苦味受体基因的研究成为研究苦味识别的分子基础. 近年来, 随着体外功能实验体系的建立, 越来越多苦味受体的配体被发现. 另一方面, 随着许多脊椎动物基因组的测序完成, 人们对苦味受体基因家族的演化研究也取得了很大的进展. 对演化驱动力的研究, 能够使我们了解不同物种中苦味受体功能的变化趋势, 从而帮助我们发现更多的苦味配体. 本文主要介绍了苦味受体基因家族的功能及其在脊椎动物中演化的最新进展, 并对苦味受体基因家族今后的研究提出了展望.

Latest advances on the studies of function and evolution of bitter taste receptor gene (T2R) family

The perception of bitter taste, as a defensive mechanism against ingestion of toxins, plays a very vital role in animal’s life because it can help animals avoid intake of poisonous substances. The ability of bitter taste detecting is extremely differential among vertebrates, which may mainly be due to their diverse living environment and dissimilar food preference. The bitter taste perception is initially mediated by the interaction between bitter tastants and their receptors. Thus, the studies of bitter taste genes (T2R) provide us an opportunity to understand the molecular basis of bitter taste perception. More recently, more and more ligands of bitter taste receptors were described in vitro functional assays. On the other hand, with the available of many vertebrate genome sequences, the study on the evolution of bitter taste receptor gene has got great progress. Studying evolutionary force can trace the change patterns of the function of bitter taste receptors in different species which can help us find more ligands of bitter taste receptors. In this review, we focus on the latest advances on the function and evolution of T2R gene family in vertebrates. Then, we propose some visions on the future studies of T2R gene family.